Saturday, September 15, 2007

Scenes of destruction in 2006 from Trincomalee district, Sri Lanka. Relentless fighting between the Tamil Tigers (L.T.T.E) and the Sri Lankan Army had forced residents of Thoppur village to flee their homes. After many agonizing weeks in relief camps, when fighting finally ceased, they returned to their village, only to find devastation where their houses once stood.(Photos by Anuj Chopra)

While passing through Thoppur village, I met S. Thangaratnam, a Tamil man, lugging a semi-exploded shell on his shoulder, and another one in his hand. Heavy shelling had destroyed most houses in Thoppur. These shells had fallen on Thangaratnam's house. An unemployed man, he planned to sell them for their iron value.

JHYALTUNG DANDA, Nepal -- We've spent five hours on the road from Kathmandu. The car is belching out thick smoke as it wobbles along the deeply rutted roads. The mercury has dropped dramatically and fog is adding to the precarious journey.

We're on our way to a remote hamlet in western Nepal, Jhyaltung Danda in the Nawalparasi district, to spend time at a Maoist camp run by the country's rebels, if they let us. Emerging from the shadow of a long clandestine existence, Nepal's Maoist rebels are now in the process of laying down arms under UN supervision, officially calling an end to their decade long revolution.

As our destination nears, the countryside is increasingly beautiful: old wooden houses rise above vast tracts of maize in mid bloom; little children waive at us as we pass by.

In the distance, I see a red flag flying from the top of a watchtower. As we pull up, a gun barrel darts out from a foxhole padded by sand bags.

We have arrived at the headquarters of the 4th division of the Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA), a rag-tag army of Nepal's Maoists. Yesterday, I tried to visit another camp in the district of Nawalparisi to meet with the rebels. The camp's lanky deputy commander politely broke the news that he couldn't get permission from his "higher ups." So my translator and I had to turn back.

PHOTO: Feeding his addiction: Khalil in his 'drug den' -- an old bullet-pocked, shrapnel-scarred, Soviet era building in Kabul -- a regular haunt for several drug addicts. (Photo by Anuj Chopra)

KILLING FIELDS-- by Anuj Chopra

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Mohammad’s motivation to check into a drug rehab clinic was a very personal tragedy. Just last month, this 60-year-old saw one of his eight children, addicted for years to heroin, painfully wither away in front of his eyes. “He smoked nig ht and day,” he says, grimacing. “I want to live. I want my other children to live.”Along with Agha, 17, his eldest son, also an addict, Mohammad made a perilous four-day road trip to Kabul from his obscure village in Helmand province. They are both fortunate to be admitted in the Nejat clinic, the only drug rehab clinic in Kabul. It offers a residential treatment programme to addicts who spend weeks here going through the painful process of withdrawal. But despite being funded by international donors, the number of patients who seek admission here far outstrips the treatment facilities here. With only 10 beds and few in-house specialists, they routinely turn away patients. There are over a 1,000 addicts on the waiting list. Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the world’s opium, making it the world’s largest poppy growing nation. The booming poppy cultivation is leaving the Afghan society ravaged by the malaise of drug addiction.

SRINAGAR, Indian Kashmir – A wood-fired bukhari warms the tiny room, providing much needed respite from the biting cold. Donning the hijab, Tahira Begum, fair, frail, and 32, is sitting in a quiet corner, her knees drawn to her chest. Between sobs, she narrates how searching for her missing husband has been her life's obsession in the last six years.

"I've looked up every prison, every morgue in Kashmir ," she sighs, her voice weak and faltering. "I've searched and searched and searched."

Tariq Ahmad, her childhood friend who she fell in love with and married when she was only 15, disappeared mysteriously six years ago. Unemployed at that time, he left to look for work one morning, never to return again.

Some eye witnesses said they had seen Indian army soldiers whisking him away, putting him in a van and driving away. Since then, there's been no information about his whereabouts. The army denies detaining him.

Tahira begum, amid uncertainty over whether her husband is still alive, is denounced a "half-widow" -- a woman who is neither a widow nor a wife. She cannot remarry under Islamic law until it's proved Tariq is dead.

The search for answers on her husband's whereabouts has taken over her nights, her days. She's been popping anti-depressants, she tells me, just so she can hold on to her sanity for the sake of her three children. Hope of Tariq's return has waned over the years. All that Tahira Begum asks for is a dignified closure.

About Me

Anuj Chopra is a journalist currently based in Hong Kong. Since 2005 he has reported from various Asian hotspots, including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Myanmar. His reporting has appeared in publications such as TIME, Newsweek, Economist and Foreign Policy. He (which is to say, I, since I am actually writing this bio and just pretending not to) won the 2005 CNN Young Journalist Award and the 2012 Ramnath Goenka prize among other honors.
You can write to Anuj at kafkacrazy@gmail.com or contact him via twitter (@anujchopra)